


liability

by feychella



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Campaign: Graduation (The Adventure Zone), Drabble, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Overdosing, There's Not Actually Any Extreme Violence In This One?, broken glass, it's mostly implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27101488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feychella/pseuds/feychella
Summary: Fitzroy tries to put himself back together.
Relationships: Argo Keene & Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt, Master Firbolg & Argo Keene & Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	liability

**Author's Note:**

> *looks at Fitzroy* i'm about to cause this boy so much pain
> 
> this is literally just an unedited drabble <3
> 
> tw: implied suicide attempt, overdosing mention, pill bottles, blood

“Are you okay?”

Fitzroy bursts into tears and throws down his bag, jars inside clinking to the floor. Argo stares at him, mouth open, as he races to the bathroom. His roommate chases behind him, and Fitzroy slams the door in his face, shivering. The hair on the back of his neck stands up and he runs a hand over his head, over and over, trying to soothe himself. There’s a medicine bottle on the counter and he picks it up, trying to read the label. When it blurs before him, he groans and throws it back down. 

Haunted eyes. Messed-up hair. Blotchy face. The boy in the mirror is him...but also, not Fitzroy. The soft golden light above the sink plays over his dark hair and he reaches his hand up to arrange it. That couldn’t be him, right? His knuckles are white and he dully realizes that his fingers are aching. The doorknob rattles. _Argo._

“Go away!”

“Do- what are you doing?”

“Argo, I said _go away_ ,” he responds through gritted teeth. Argo’s footsteps recede and Fitzroy takes a deep breath, looking at himself, not-himself, the boy in the mirror, the boy that can’t be him- 

He tries to swallow. _Get it together, Maplecourt._ Fitz’s eyes turn shiny in the mirror. _No, no, no._ Not now. He can’t do this right now. _I have work to do, I have homework, I have wo-_ He isn’t particularly sad, something just feels...off. So he’s crying. The tension in his chest breaks and he sits on the floor, back against the wall. _Stupid. Stupid reason to cry._

 _It gets better. It’ll get better._ He hugs his knees to his chest, and taps his fists against his thighs over and over again, trying to keep control. Fitzroy uncurls his fists and taps his fingers against the floor, drumming them and trying to keep it together. Smoke. Where is the smoke coming from? _The shower curtain._ He flicks his wrist and puts the fire out. There. Crisis averted. He saved his roommates. The dorm. No, that was stupid. He didn’t save anyone.

 _Keep it together. Come on. We don’t have time for this today._ We don’t have..he doesn’t have time...what if he doesn’t have time…? He chokes back a sob and buries his face in his hands. A strangled cry echoes around the bathroom and he slaps his hand over his mouth, throat raw. _What’s wrong with me?_ Crawling over to the toilet, he reaches for tissue paper and blows his nose, slumping back onto the floor in a heap. He needs to get up. He needs to _go_ somewhere. Clear his head. When Fitzroy tries to move his limbs, they don’t respond. His cheeks are sticky and he dabs at them absentmindedly before letting his hands fall uselessly into his lap. The greens and pale pinks of the bathroom spin around him and he squeezes his eyes shut.

Teeth chattering, he hugs his thin sweatshirt around him, folding his arms and rubbing his hands together. _I can’t go back to feeling nothing again, no, no, no-_ and he lashes out, reaching for something, anything, the last time he felt something really strongly and when was that, who did he-

 _You think I don’t know what it’s like?_ Clyde Nite’s Knight Night School. _You think I haven’t stood in front of the medicine cabinet too?_ Finding his roommate slumped over the toilet in their shared bathroom. _Let me tell you exactly what it’s like._ Fighting to take the medicine bottles out of his hands, thanking God for childproof caps _. You read the amount on the bottle, the amount that’s t-too much, and you take it._

He grabs his roommate’s shoulders and shakes him. You’re not supposed to shake people who are having a breakdown - who told him that? - and he shakes him again. His little speech echoes back to him. _Okay, you take it, and you go downstairs to where your parents are sitting on the couch, watching TV, and you hug them goodnight just like it’s any other night._ Whispering _furiously_ at his friend, telling him it gets better, and- He starts breathing faster and slams his hands over his ears. He did it wrong. He handled it all _wrong._ He shouldn’t have said those things. He shouldn’t have said tha- But how could he make his friend understand that he _loved_ him? That he would do anything for him?

 _You hug them goodnight, you say you love them, a-and you hope they really know._ He’s telling his friend, his first friend, his _only_ friend, that he’s going to be okay. The words sound like a lie. _And then what? You go to sleep._ Glassy-eyed. His roommate is glassy-eyed. Fitzroy grasps the other boy’s face in his hands, nauseous. Make him understand. He had to make him understand. _You go to sleep and you fucking pray to God that your little brother doesn’t find you in the morning._ And now his roommate is crying, huddled on the floor, shivering. Fitzroy reaches out, falling to the floor, and the second Fitzroy’s knees give out, he’s alone again. Cold. It’s cold. He's too cold.

Little flames burst at the edge of his fingernails and he dips them in the glass of water on the counter, grasping the edge of the counter for stability. Fitzroy sways for a moment before letting himself gently back down to the floor. His eyes start to flutter shut and he forces him to stay awake. _Exhausted. Why am I exhausted?_ He hears Argo walking around outside and he rests his head against the wall, emotionally done, mind scrambled. Fitzroy kicks the cabinet under the sink, the medicine bottle falls, he flinches at the sound. No, no, that was too painful. When was he happy? When was the last time he felt loved? When, who, wher-

Argo. Rainer. The Firbolg. All of them in the cafe, laughing and studying. It was finals week, just a little while ago. Finals week. He was _exhausted,_ he didn’t even want to go but Argo had asked him to come with. And he couldn’t say no to Argo. So he went, and he had a good time, and he fell asleep in his seat. The Firbolg carried him home and settled him in his bunk, Argo pulled the covers over him, and Fitzroy felt loved. He clings to the memory, trying to let it warm him. 

His hands are frozen, frozen, and he thinks that if he doesn’t warm up soon he might freeze to death, here on the bathroom floor. Cold. Everything’s _cold._ He pulls the sweatshirt around himself and wipes his face in his sleeves. Fitzroy’s heart rate slows down a little and he takes a shaky breath. 

The door clicks open and he turns, scrambling to his feet. He absorbs himself with the charred shower curtain, fiddling with it as Argo walks in behind him. Something falls - a glass of water - off the counter and Fitzroy tries to grab it. Glass embeds itself in his hand and he sobs again. 

Pushing past Argo, he wipes his face and focuses on the pink water swirling down the sink. His vision blurs again and he takes a shaky breath. _Get it together._ When he turns around again, Argo crushes him in a hug. Fitzroy dissolves in Argo’s warmth, and buries his face in the other boy’s shoulder. The Firbolg lumbers in behind them, reaching for his toothbrush, before crushing the both of them in a hug. Fitzroy breathes in the scent of the ocean and the forest, and lets himself be at peace. It would be okay, for now.


End file.
